Dutch Foe Yong Hai (Egg Foo Young) is a super tasty, airy omelette you can pick up at the Dutch Chinese. Filled with vegetables, shrimp, mushrooms, or ham. And served with a sweet tomato sauce. This is a super easy recipe for a Chinese Omelet. So highly recommended!
Dutch Foe Yong Hai (Egg Foo Young)
Egg Foo Young is a fried omelet with vegetables, which you combine with shrimp (my favorite), mushrooms, and/or ham. It is a recipe in China used for processing leftovers, which they do deliciously!
The Foe Yong Hai that we know is served with a sweet tomato sauce, but in almost every country, the sauce is slightly different (Oyster/soy sauce based). And in China, it is usually served only with soy sauce. My taste buds are entirely used to tomato sauce, and I am sharing that recipe with you!
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Homemade is Easy
Making the Egg Foo Young recipe was very easy. Of course, the starting point is eggs, but baking the egg with the filling gave me much more flavor, and I supplemented the egg with carrot, leek, and bean sprouts.
I made the sauce from chicken stock, kecap Manis, and tomato ketchup that I thickened with some potato starch (but you can also use cornstarch for that). Fry in the pan, make the sauce separately, and quickly the Foe Yong Hai was on my plate. And… it was delicious. Ready to try it yourself?
What do you need for this Chinese Omelette with Sauce?
To prepare this Dutch Foe Yong Hai, you need the following ingredients. You can find the correct amounts in the recipe card at the bottom of the blog:
One of my tips is that you place the omelette in the sauce for just a few minutes before you go to eat. The flavor of the sauce will enhance the flavor of the egg, and that makes it even better!
Foe Yong Hai Sauce
- Vegetable stock - Make a homemade vegetable stock or use a cube. This gives a lot of flavor to the sauce.
- Ketchup - It gives a nice sweet tomato taste.
- Potato Starch - Use to thicken the sauce. You can also use cornstarch for this.
- Kecap Manis - Gives the Foe Yong Hai Sauce a deliciously sweet taste and is readily available online. Do you only have Japanese or light soy sauce, but still want a sweet taste? Then add two tablespoons of honey to â…“ cup (80 ml) of soy sauce.
- Brown Sugar - Besides being sweet, brown sugar gives the sauce a caramel flavor.
Egg Foo Young
- Oil - Use neutral vegetable oil, such as sunflower oil. You use more oil than you usually do when baking an omelet because you want to "fry" it. This makes the egg wonderfully airy and bubbles.
- Leek - Thinly sliced into rings. This way, it keeps a nice bite.
- Carrot - Cut into thin strips (julienne). Cutting them small, they cook lightly but keep their bite.
- Bean sprouts - Also called soybean sprouts or Tjapar. It tastes like Chinese cabbage. Because it is ready in a wink, you only have to bake it for a short time.
- Eggs - The base of the omelet. Use eggs size L.
- Shrimp - Peeled, cooked, and cleaned. Remove the intestinal tract. If the shrimps are raw, fry them for a while before adding them. You can replace these with mushrooms, ham cubes, or minced meat.
How to prepare Asian Shrimp Omelette
You can find a printable recipe with a step-by-step description at the bottom of this blog.
- Start with the sauce. Put the stock, kecap, ketchup, and sugar in a pan and bring everything to a boil.
- Mix the potato starch with water to a paste. Pour that into the sauce and stir well. Let it thicken. Keep the sauce warm.
- Heat oil in the pan, stir-fry the carrot, and leek for 2 minutes. Then cover the pan and let it simmer for 3 minutes. Divide the bean sprouts over the vegetables.
- Pour the beaten eggs into the vegetables and fry the egg over low heat until it is light brown on the bottom. Flip the omelet and cook for another 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and add the sauce. Cover the pan and let stand for 2 minutes. Serve!
This is delicious for lunch or dinner. But this is also tasty as part of an Asian buffet. Combine with Bami, Babi Pangang, and Crispy Chinese Honey Sesame Chicken.
Garnish with finely chopped scallions.
Variations and Tips
- Other tasty vegetables are finely chopped: zucchini, bell pepper, celery, broccoli, peas, chopped cabbage, eggplant, mushrooms, and scallion.
- Add garlic when you stir-fry the vegetable for even more flavor.
- If you are using frozen shrimp, pat them dry before adding them (otherwise, they will be too watery) and fry them until done.
- You can also use shrimp and a second protein (chicken or ground meat). This gives Egg Foo Young more depth.
- Use a maximum of 1 ½ cups (175 grams) of finely chopped vegetables per four eggs. Do not add more veggies to the egg, or the Egg Foo Young will fall apart. If you want to use more vegetables, you can serve them as a filling afterward.
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Dutch Foe Yong Hai (Egg Foo Young)
Equipment
Ingredients
Foe Yong Hai Sauce
- ¼ cup vegetable stock
- 2 tablespoons Kecap Manis
- 3 tablespoons tomato ketchup
- 1 teaspoon dark brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons potato starch
- 4 tablespoons water
Egg Foo Young (Chinese Omelette)
- 3 tablespoons sunflower oil
- 4 oz. carrots sliced au julienne
- ½ leek thinly sliced
- ¼ pound shrimps peeled, deveined and cooked
- 2 oz. bean sprouts
- 4 eggs size L
- salt and pepper to taste
Ingredients you need per step are listed below the step in Italic
Instructions
Foe Yong Hai Sauce
- Add the broth, kecap, ketchup, and sugar to a saucepan and bring to a boil.¼ cup vegetable stock, 2 tablespoons Kecap Manis, 3 tablespoons tomato ketchup, 1 teaspoon dark brown sugar
- In a small bowl, mix the potato starch with the water.2 teaspoons potato starch, 4 tablespoons water
- Stir it into the sauce, let it come to a boil again, and let it thicken.
- Simmer for another 2 minutes and after that, keep the sauce warm.
Egg Foo Young (Chinese omelette)
- Heat the oil in a frying pan.3 tablespoons sunflower oil
- Add the carrot and leeks to the pan and stir-fry for 2 minutes, then place the lid on the pan and let simmer for 3 minutes on low heat.4 oz. carrots, ½ leek
- Add the shrimp and stir-fry it for another 2 minutes.¼ pound shrimps
- Then add the bean sprouts.2 oz. bean sprouts
- Meanwhile, beat the eggs with salt and pepper and pour in with the vegetable mixture.4 eggs, salt and pepper
- Reduce the heat to low and cook the omelette until it is light brown on the bottom.
- Turn the omelette and cook the other side for another 2 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and pour the sauce on top. Cover and let it stand for 2 minutes. After that, you can serve the Chinese omelette with sauce.
Notes
- Refrigerator - Store the cooled Egg Foo Young with sauce in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 2 days.
- Freezer - The structure of the egg changes to a rubber structure when you freeze it. So not recommended.
- Reheating - Heat a preheated oven at 390 °F (200 °C) for 15 minutes. Or heat in the microwave for 4 to 6 minutes.
Roland Pont says
Omg…. This recipe! It is by far the best Foe Jong Hai, I’ve had since I left Netherlands. I’ve always been able to make the egg part, nothing hard about it but the sauce!!! That recipe is absolutely Perfect!!
Only change i would make is to make double the sauce; never can have enough sauce right?
Other changes i made. : added celery instead of leeks and sliced water chestnuts instead of mushrooms. Everything else the same. Perfect 🤩
Andréa says
Thank you so much. I agree, the sauce is the most difficult part of this recipe, to get it right. I'm glad you liked it, it took quite a lot of tries before I got it.